


YinYang

by friends_call_me_wobbly_hands



Category: Original Work
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Attempted Murder, Domestic, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, M/M, Martial Arts, Murder, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Terrible Parents, This Is Not How You Raise A Child For God's Sake, Touch-Starved, except speedrun, just to be clear, look this is incredibly self-indulgent, please don't hink it is in any way intellectual, taming your assassin, to scratch those hurt/comfort itches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24716542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friends_call_me_wobbly_hands/pseuds/friends_call_me_wobbly_hands
Summary: Yin's clan has been at war for generations, and he himself - the child of the leaders - has been raised a weapon. However, when he is ordered to clear out the sad remains of the opposing clan, something goes terribly wrong.(Terribly right.)He had never known that it would be so easy to make a friend - or so hard to hurt him.
Kudos: 2





	1. (un)wavering

**Author's Note:**

> This happened and I will not say a word more without my attorney.

One thing that can be said about Yin is: Yin never wavers.

He does not have much of a personality past being persistent, just like a blade does not need ornaments past its sharpness. He is young, strong and lithe like a hound, and he is just as relentless in his pursuit. Things are simple. Orders are curt and familiar. His aim: a family, the last of the opposing clan. His goal: murder.

Hearing it almost makes him excited.

It is not a goal that is easy to reach, of course. The enemies hid away well, washing away blood stains and rinsing off the fingerprints. Their route is a dozen of cut ends. It is almost enough for a normal person to admit defeat and claim them missing without trace.

But no one is able to disappear completely. Yin follows hints and traces like a blood trail. He cannot stop. He cannot give up. And he does not hesitate to draw blood to clear his way.

(His grip is tight. The sweep of his blade is curt and final, like a stroke of a pen under the death sentence.)

(His parents will be so proud of him.)

He searches and searches; disregarding everything but his aim. His life aim. It is the pinnacle of his life, the culmination of his purpose. He was born and raised to put an end to the ancient war between the clans with another flourish of his blade. He is a high class weapon himself, nothing more and nothing less. Tough. Durable. Trusty.

(He does not sleep and does not eat for days, treating his body needs like an inconvenience. A crack in the otherwise solid metal. He can go without. It is fine. As long as it does not interfere with his work.)

(He is so, so tired, but what else is new?)

(His parents will be proud.)

Yin never wavers, and he prides himself on that. His hands don't shake. His hits always land, no matter who his enemy is this time. It does not matter anymore. Their faces are long just a grey-red blur of melted panic and fury. When he first picked his sword, it was half his height; now he has grown into it. It has been years.

Yin never stops.

Yin finds his aim. 

...Yin staggers for the first time.

He remembers home. Stone walls. Iron doors. Iron bars on windows; a striped sky that does not answer prayers. Bare ground, stomped clean of a single green speck. Shouts. Training. Bamboo canes.

He looks, and he does not see anything he assumed.

It is a small house in the forest, on a sunny opening, surrounded by berry bushes and flower patches. It is quiet. Serene. Birdsong punctuates the tender silence that hangs over it.

Yin gulps down the forest air - a drowning man, desperate and frozen. It should not be like that! It must be a trap, a dead end! Where's the fortress? Where's the guard? Where's everything you need to live and stay safe and _raise-_

(His father says, you cannot forge a weapon by patting the iron. You need a hammer and a fire.)

(He knows the enemies also had a son. He has always assumed he'd meet an equal, one day. Another weapon. Another bloodthirsty hound, defending his territory, about to bite into the stranger's throat. The thought was strangely comforting.)

(It would be nice to not be the only one - for the few seconds before he'd need to tear the other into pieces.)

It must be wrong. He must have made a mistake. It must be a wrong lead…

Helplessly, he watches from the branches, hidden by the same leaves that covered the small house from sight. A woman walks out, and he recognises her: the photos showed her younger, taller, sharper, but it is impossible not to recognise the White Snake herself, the ruthless fiend that caused so many funerals in Yin's clan before he was even born. She was talented in the worst way, mixing poisons that could make you fall dead before you felt it on your tongue. 

She's one of the three people he is hunting. She is old.

She's barefooted, and she smiles.

Yin has to strike. He only needs a second to unleash his blade and leave a red shaky signature all over her frail back. Then another three seconds to storm into an unguarded house and wipe the whole family out.

He watches as the Snake picks a few flowers and, humming, brings them back home.

None of them are poisonous.

The door clicks locked behind her.

***

Days pass.

Yin keeps watching. His blade has not left the sheath once.

He does not understand.

He saw the Snake again, several times (working in the garden; watching the sunset; feeding the birds). He saw her husband too, the fearsome Bull; towering over his frail wife, dark and dangerous. She was sitting on the porch. He came after her at dusk and picked her up, armchair and all, and she laughed and pulled on his ear as he carried her home like a princess.

Is this a facade? Are they trying to appeal to his sympathy?

But why? Don’t they know he has none?

One night, Yin feels particularly daring. He’s been coming closer and closer each day; this time, he gets to the very window and looks inside.

Inside, it looks warm. It looks soft, and pleasant, and comfortable like a toasty bed on a cool morning. Snake and Bull sit there, together - talking and smiling as he works on her hair to make the long silver braid that once terrified even the most stoic warriors.

Yin has seen nothing like that. Has felt nothing like that.

(His own hair, tied in a tight ponytail, is greasy and full of tangles.)

(He wonders how it must feel, to have someone’s fingers run through your hair, smooth out and stroke.)

He runs away as if the window was made of burning coals.


	2. pie day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murder child meets child.

It has been days after days after days. Sun has risen and set more times than he cares to count.   


Yin has not struck yet.

He watches, cold and unable to comprehend, as one uneventful day flows into another. There is no training. Not a single cry of pain nor fear. No shutters, no bars on the walls. The door has two flimsy locks, good only for keeping animals away. No protective walls. No guards. Not a single half-blind one. 

The mere air surrounding the house seems syrupy sweet. The flowers bloom, unperturbed. Even the poisonous ones.

He invents excuses, more excuses! It must be a trap. It must be a mistake. There must be something that would explain this glaring discrepancy between the way he sees things and the way they are.

...There is a pie on the windowsill, one day.

Yin blinks. It has been hard, staying awake and balanced. He is aware that his body desperately needs fuel by this point. He found some berries, but they merely teased the beast of a hunger inside him. And now there is a cooling pie. It smells. It smells heavenly.

Yin does not understand how, but he blinks and then he is standing by the window. The pie is tantalising. It sits there, warm and unguarded. He needs to reach out, and then…

“Oh! Hi there. I did not notice you. Are you hungry?”

Yin jerks away, startled, tense - and there he is: his sworn enemy. His rival. His equal.

His eyes are light. He is chubby, and his lips widen in a ghost of a smile that is waiting for any sign to bloom full force. He has an apron - a ridiculous one, with frilly pink hem and a picture of a cat face all over the chest.

“I’m Yang”, he says, softly, and he  _ is  _ soft - he looks nothing like the weapon Yin is. He has not a single edge to him. 

Yang to Yin.

Yin holds on to the slipping thread of sanity: this might still be a decoy. A trap.

“I am Yin”, he says in a voice that sounds like rusty cogs coming to a stop. “From the clan Sashiba.”

Yang blinks. Yin searches his face for a sign of panic - anger - realisation - but there is none. None at all. Just that damned slow softness. “Okay, nice to meet you. Are you hungry?”

It is Yin’s turn to blink in confusion. “What?”

“I saw you look at the pie.” Yang’s smile blossoms, a little apologetic but tender. “Let me cut you a slice.” He gives Yin a look, top to bottom. “Actually, let me cut you a few.”

“Don’t you understand?”

“Understand what?” Yang moves the pie aside and reaches through the window and into the kitchen to grab a knife from the counter. He does not hold it like a weapon. Somehow, in his hand it almost looks nonthreatening. The edge sinks into the dough as if it was its only - ever - purpose. Perhaps it was.  


“Sashiba clan. Don’t you know?” Yin is drowning again, sinking in deep. The air barely gets in. "Don't you... get it?"   


“I am sorry, but I haven’t heard of it before.” Two slices are cut out of the pie. Yang takes the smaller one and bites on it. “Help yourself!”

Yin does not understand. He can barely comprehend what is going on. Something tastes sweet on his tongue. He looks down and sees a slice of pie in his hand. The warmness slides down into his aching stomach, and it is something - something different to concentrate on. It gets a little easier to breathe.

The slice is gone quickly, and he can think a little clearer - yet another slice is placed into his fingers before he knows it. Yang looks at him with a strange expression.

He could throw it away. 

He has to throw it away.

He eats it.

“There”, Yang says with pride. “Did you like it?”

Yin staggers and disappears into the trees.

...The whys and whats swarm his mind as he holds onto his head, hidden away from the eyes in the leaves. He almost feels betrayed. How come he  _ does not know? _ Why is he nothing like Yin? What is Yin going to do now?

Why did not he kill him?

...Why was the pie safe?

The sweet taste lingers on his tongue. Warmness rises from inside, unfamiliar, unwelcome.

(This was the first pie he’s ever tasted.)

( He liked it a lot. )


	3. taming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bonding time is essential for taming your assassin! please give them love and attention they deserve

Time has stopped meaning.

Lots of things have.

Yin is still watching, though he does not even know why. There they are, all three. He could have taken them out on day one, with no resistance. It would be ridiculously simple. And then he would not waste any time; he would head home, to the barren fortress in the barren land full of tricks and traps where everything is the way it should be. His parents would rejoice in the fact that the once mighty and dangerous clan is no more. 

Perhaps - perhaps - they would even be proud.

Perhaps… no, this thought is too daring, and Yin forbids himself to dwell on the image he saw once through the window: a father’s hand ruffling Yang’s hair.

There is nothing there to guard that small house in the middle of nowhere - save for that earnest vulnerability that shines through. Like an open hand. Like a bare throat. 

Yin hesitates - for the first time in his life. And oh, how he hates himself for that.

There is a new pie on the windowsill, almost every day. He never touches them. Yet they still appear, without a fault - already cut into slices. Welcoming. 

Taunting.

He watches _Yang_ work in the garden and feed the birds and laugh and sigh and wipe off his brow in the evening, and there is a hollowness in his chest.  Yin cannot put a name to it, or a reason to its birth. But it claws his ribcage, inside out. He wonders if it is going to break out and swallow him whole.

For the first time in his entire life, filled with duty and purpose, he wonders what would happen when they were no more there. What use is there for a sword in peaceful times?

He hopes that his parents would be proud enough to keep him around as a prized weapon, at least. The hollowness in his chest tells him differently. A month ago he'd be fine with that; right now there is a blink of hesitation before he tells himself that he is still fine with that.

Right now, he knows how it could have been. There was no threat, not really. There was no need to stomp on that little house, other than to feed one's pride. He does not question his parents outwardly, not even in his thoughts, but he wonders if they were ill-informed on the issue. If it was going to be that easy, then why the trainings, why the canes? Why the skills that are enough to wipe off an army?  


Why... _him?_

One day, in the evening, when it is quiet and the setting sun gives a sense of conclusion to everything said and done during the day, he appears before Yang. He is not noticed immediately. But when he is, it is the same fucking smile that greets him.

“Oh! Hello, Yin. One second, I will take those off…” Yang pulls off the thick gardening gloves and stands up, puffing. “Did you need anything?”

“I came here to kill you”, Yin says.

Yang blinks. There’s a flash of emotion in his face, and he briefly glances at the front door before pausing. “...Why, and why haven’t you done it yet?”

Those are good questions to ask, but the fact that he is not running, he is not doing anything he is supposed to do drives Yin a little bit more into the cold pit of derealisation. For a second, he watches his hand reach for the sword. Then he is in control again, and his fingers never finish their grasp.  


“I thought it would be unjust to let you die without knowing why exactly you are dying”, Yin answers. “I’ll tell you of the war.”

And so he does - briefly and without much feeling; most of it happened before he even got born, to people he did not know. Yang, however, grows more and more pale, and he sometimes makes pained sounds and presses his hands to his mouth. Every new casually mentioned victim or casualty makes him wince as if in pain, himself. Yin gets surprised at first, but everything still feels too much like a dream to pay it much mind.  


When the story is over, the first thing Yang says is: “So… did they really raise you like this?”

Yin blinks. Reality feels slipping out of his grasp even more. “What? Oh. Yes.”

“I’m so sorry”, Yang says, and he is painfully open - painfully earnest. “You deserved better. It must have hurt a lot.” He makes a small pause. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Yin’s head spins. “What? Why?”

“Well, you can always just… kill me later, I guess?” Yang says tentatively. He sits on the bench that faces west and pats it, inviting. “I am not going anywhere. I mean, I’d rather not die at all, of course. So… I won’t beg you for my life, something tells me it would not do me any good. But can we talk first? Just… talk.” He smiles. The hollowness inside Yin grows and pierces his chest. “Nothing more.”

It is an upside-down world Yin is in. In that world, it is apparently normal to feed strangers. In that world, you try and talk with your future murderer.

In that world, Yin finds himself slowly sitting down on the bench. His head is spinning. His emotions don’t make sense. Nothing does, in fact.

But he can talk, he guesses.

And so they talk.

***

Talking is hard if all you’ve ever done is listening.

Yin’s throat clamps, and he does not look up. It’s easier to forget who you are talking to if you are not looking. Because he still needs to kill Yang, and the latter’s making this really awkward.

But Yang -  _ the other  _ listens, patiently, to all the stubby sentences and half-swallowed phrases. He listens, and he asks, and he seems so genuine in his interest - and so sincere in his soft occasional “you are doing very well”.

And it turns out that it’s even harder to stop talking once you are started. Yin chokes on words, hurrying to let them out. He speaks of the war that was over before his birth but still lingered in the blood, in the minds; of the small bare room and barred windows; of the ache in his muscles and his bones that seemed unending; of the rare signs of attention he has learned to grab and hold to like they were drops of water in desert. This might be his only ever chance to be heard. 

And he talks.

And he is listened to.

Eventually, he runs out of words to spill and falls quiet, strangely exhausted. It is getting colder, and the sun has long set. The other is silent too at his side. Yin has a brief moment of confusion before he hears a soft voice speak:

“Oh. Sorry. I was lost in thought.” A sigh. “Thank you for telling me this. You did very well. I’m… sorry you got hurt so much.”

Yin does not see how he could do well when all he did was talk and be annoying, but he cannot help but take that praise in. It feels warm.

(Not like he deserves that warmth.)

(It will end soon, anyway.)

“How… was it for you?” Yin asks to think of something else.

Yang winces. "I'm afraid that it was… different. Way different."

Yin presses. Eventually, the softer one sighs and relents.

And Yin learns, with surprise and the same hollowness, of a happy childhood; of gardening and horse rides; of birthday parties, friends and sweethearts; of studying, and town fairs, and everything, everything that he never knew.

He cannot feel envy because Yang whispers "I wish you had all of this, too" before his heart is struck with the first pang of it.

They sit in silence for a while as the cooling air flows and swells with mist around them. Yin shivers, hugging himself. Despite being clothed well for the weather, he still feels bare.

"Do you want to kill me?"

Yin snaps out of his thoughts and looks up at Yang, shocked at this raw earnestness. "I told you. Yes."

Yang shakes his head. "No - do  _ you _ want to kill me? Would you still want to if you did not have your orders?"

"I… I don't know. No." He looks down again. Would he?.. No, no. Without a reason, he would never grab his sword.

Perhaps, in a different place, in a different time… perhaps they could even be - 

Friends? Do weapons even deserve friends? 

Yin tries to forget the memory of the laughter and soft touches that he saw through the windows.

Yang solemnly nods. "...You have to make sure that the clan is no more, right?"

"Yes."

"What if I am not from the clan anymore?"

"I - What?!"

"I could make a request. Change the documents. Take a different family name." Yang shrugs and smiles. "It's… a little cheating, but still."

Yin gulps, shocked and confused again, but… that could really work. He has to make sure the memory of the enemies' clan is wiped out… and apparently, erasers are just as good as swords sometimes.

( He does not admit - refuses to admit the desperate haste to convince himself of this. He does not think about how relieved he feels, either.)

"Alright", he says. "Alright. That should work."

Yang  _ beams _ at him and Yin swallows again, uneasy. Unsure. 

"Great! Thank you. See, there are always more solutions than one", he says in a voice that would be obnoxiously proud - if not the softness of it. "Thank you so much, Yin."

He holds out a hand.

Yin eyes it helplessly, wondering if the trap has finally closed - but he shakes it nonetheless. The touch is warm, gentle, and it makes him shiver. How long was it since anyone touched him not to hurt? 

"Thank you", Yang says again, and there is no trap - no trick - just that smile. "Do you want some cookies? I made them today. They turned out nice."

Yin stares at him, and suddenly - suddenly, the hollowness within him  _ bursts _ , and he is overflowing with an aching desire of that softness, that calmness, that peace; suddenly, he craves to feel how it feels, if just for a blink -

( gentle fingers in his hair, hands around his shoulders, smiles and words of praise, cookies and quiet evenings. )

Wordless, tamed, Yin closes his eyes and nods.


End file.
